


new rules

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon), sharpshooting



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Unrequited Love, parent-child bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpshooting/pseuds/sharpshooting
Summary: In which Krolia learns that Keith loves Shiro.





	new rules

**Author's Note:**

> mmmmMMMMMmm okay so it looks like i was fucking myself up trying to write requited sheith. which sucks, because i like _reading_ requited sheith, it's just the writing of it that drags me strange and dark places.
> 
> OTL
> 
> at least i know what angle to approach it from now?

It wasn't often that the Blade of Mamora and the Paladins of Voltron were in the same place for very long. When all was said and done, that suited Keith just fine.

"They look happy," Krolia noted quietly, her nigh inaudible footsteps still reaching Keith's ears somehow.

Keith didn't answer, watching Lance's bayard flash red against Allura's blue, Pidge playing short-range support for Lance and Hunk playing long-range support for Allura. Shiro was refereeing, calling out fouls and points as energy whip met Altean broadsword and 'droids fell to taser and sniper shots alike.

The thing was... they _did_ look happy. Allura, Lance, Pidge, Hunk... they were all smiling brighter than he'd ever seen them smile before. The hard line of tension in Shiro's shoulders was finally starting to loosen. Together they moved like the well-oiled machine Voltron should be—and the well-oiled machine it _hadn't_ been while Keith was there.

"Do you miss it?" Krolia wondered.

The two of them were high in the shadowed wings of the training simulator, Blade uniforms letting them disappear into the dark, and Keith half-wished they would let him disappear from Krolia's sight too.

"Not really," he said, and he meant it as much as he didn't.

He should really be somewhere else—training himself, sharpening his dagger, asking Kolivan for updates, eating, sleeping, anything really—but he'd wanted to see Shiro, and Shiro had been prepping for practice, and, like a fool, Keith had stayed to watch instead of slinking off and waiting for them to finish.

He hadn't felt like this much of an outsider looking in even during his early garrison days.

He'd just made his mind up to peel himself away from the sight when Krolia spoke again.

"Shiro was asking after you."

Keith's fool heart lodged itself in his mouth. He didn't quite mean to, but suddenly he found himself staring his long-lost mother dead in the alien-violet eye.

Those alien-violet eyes softened as they took in the look on his face. "He was worried about you, wanted to make sure you were doing well." She tilted her head. "Have you not kept in contact with him?"

"Ah," said Keith, faltering. Somehow, it wasn't until she said that that Keith even realized he _should._

Because why _wouldn't_ Shiro want to know how he was doing. Weren't— weren't they friends?

Keith glanced away from her, knowing that he should probably sort out the tangle of pain in his chest and not having the first clue how to do that.

His gaze found Shiro, just as it always did.

Something had happened to leave the sparring paladins on the ground, and Shiro was helping them both up, his cybernetic hand offered to Allura and his flesh one offered to Lance. He was smiling over some antic, some repartee between the team that Keith was too far away to hear, looking happy and relaxed and as overwhelmingly _kind_ as he always had been.

While he wasn't looking, that tangle of pain in Keith's heart had grown thorns long enough to scrape his ribcage.

"...Ah," said Krolia, like he'd solved a great mystery for her.

Keith didn't know what mystery that was, and he suspected that he didn't want to know. He pulled his eyes away from Shiro like he was pulling fish hooks out of his skin, tucking his frayed heartstrings back into his chest, and turned away from the scene.

"What?" he asked when he was certain his voice would hold.

Krolia reached for his shoulder, only to falter and halt halfway there. She folded her arms over her chest and glanced away, a mirror to his own stance. "I..."

Keith waited.

In this moment of stillness, it struck Keith just how _easy_ it was to read her face—torn and guilty and pained. She had expressive eyes, a face enough like his that it was like looking in a Galra mirror, and he wondered if he was as transparent as this.

From the look she gave him, he gathered that he was.

"He... cares about you," was what she said in the end.

Keith swallowed. There was a fissure in his chest, and he wished there wasn't. "...I know."

Krolia's mouth flattened into a thin line, the tips of her ears dipping by millimeters. Her expression was veering dangerously towards 'pity,' so he turned away so he wouldn't have to see it.

And, true as a compass finding north, Keith found Shiro.

Krolia's hand came down on his shoulder and spun him back around, the touch as gentle and careful as it was inescapable, and pulled him into a tight hug, her bulk blocking his vision and making his ribs creak in one fell swoop.

Keith found his nose mashed against one cold shoulder pad and tears building in the back of his throat—tears that coalesced in the corners of his eyes when Krolia inhaled as if to speak, and then let the breath go.

"Mom..."

The hug tightened by a fraction, and then released just as much. "He's a good man."

Keith swallowed again at the lump in his throat. "Yeah, he is."

"You don't have to keep in contact with him if you don't wish to."

It was strange to hear those words spoken aloud—relieving. Affirming. "Okay."

The top of Keith's head was nuzzled like he was a bear cub instead of a human one, a kiss placed in his hair. "I love you, my son."

A few droplets of water escaped his eyes' tight hold. "I know, mom."

Krolia breathed deep, then released him.

"Give it time," she said, a sad smile winding around the corners of her mouth as she gave his shoulders a gentle shake.

Behind them, laughter floated up from the training room. Keith's ears automatically strained to catch Shiro's quiet chuckles in the cascade, but if Shiro had joined the hilarity, than the rest of the paladins' voices were too loud for Keith to tell.

He forced himself to stop listening for them.

"...I will," he promised, scrubbing the tear tracks away.

Krolia squeezed his shoulders. "Good."


End file.
